Quick Change

She keeps her body around the house. There is body in the coat closet in the hall by the front door, body under the bed in plastic bins, a pile in the garage by the recycling bin. The spares, she calls them. She misplaces her body like she loses her keys. She releases it, lets her body carry her from this room to that, lets her body stretch until it must be replaced. It is better this way, she says, slipping into a fresh one as the baby cries. I never have to worry about being recognized.

Callista Buchen is the author of poetry chapbooks The Bloody Planet (Black Lawrence Press, October 2015) and Double-Mouthed (dancing girl press, April 2016).

She is the winner of DIAGRAM‘s essay contest and the Langston Hughes award, with work appearing in Harpur Palate, Fourteen Hills, Puerto del Sol, Salamander, Whiskey Island Review, and many other journals. She teaches writing at Franklin College in Indiana.